The buckeye Tree ( Aesculus glabra ) in the United States go to the horse chestnut tree family and include coinage like the Ohio buckeye , the yellowed buckeye and the California buckeye . The Ohio buckeye has the exclusive right of being Ohio ’s state tree , with the nut it produces represent by the Ohio State University ’s mascot . Buckeye Tree are identifiable by some of their feature , not the least of which is the bollock that Ohio native will persuade in their air hole for good fortune , harmonize to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources site .
Step 1
Look at the size of the buckeye tree when trying to tell it aside from other specimens . An Ohio buckeye farm by itself in the open may reach 60 pes grandiloquent and have a 30 - foot blanket banquet of branch . The yellow buckeye can be 90 feet improbable , but littler species of buckeye that strain to attain 30 human foot in height let in the red-faced buckeye and the paint Aesculus hippocastanum .
Step 2
probe the leafage of the buckeye trees . The palmately compound leaflets , arranged in a semi - circle pattern at the end of a retentive stalk , are as foresightful as 6 inches and up to 2.5 inch in width in the case of the paint buckeye , though size varies with other buckeyes . Most American buckeye species have five leaflets on each leaf , with yellow Aesculus hippocastanum sometimes having seven .
Step 3
Inspect the flush that develop on the buckeyes in the spring . Ohio buckeye has doorbell - shape blooms that possess four chickenhearted - greenish petals and seven stamens . The flush emerge before or with the leaves and grow in upright clusters at the end of subdivision , say the National Audubon Field Guide to Trees . cerise buckeye has reddish flowers spring up in clustering , while the California Aesculus hippocastanum of the West Coast has off-white to dull red flowers growing on 5- to 10 - inch long stalk .
Step 4
analyse the buckeye nuts . Ohio buckeye nuts have a browned husk with spines and will break open when the addict is ripe . The nut yield the coinage its name as it supposedly looks like the shiny optic of a cervid . The poisonous buckeye nut is an inch or two wide and a deep browned color . The nut of the buckeye tree diagram ripen by the beginning week of fall .
